Thread: Most BIZARRE Suicide I've ever hear of

At the 1994 annual awards dinner given by the American Association for
Forensic Science, AAFS President Don Harper Mills astounded his audience in
San Diego with the legal complications of a bizarre death. Here is the
story.

On 23 March 1994, the medical examiner viewed the body of Ronald Opus and
concluded that he died from a shotgun wound to the head. The decedent had
jumped from the top of a ten-story building intending to commit suicide (he
left a note indicating his despondency). As he fell past the ninth floor, his
life was interrupted by a shotgun blast through a window, which killed him
instantly. Neither the shooter nor the decedent was aware that a safety net
had been erected at the eighth floor level to protect some window washers and
that Opus would not have been able to complete his suicide anyway because of
this.

Ordinarily, Dr. Mills continued, a person who sets out to commit suicide
ultimately succeeds, even though the mechanism might not be what he
intended. That Opus was shot on the way to certain death nine stories below
probably would not have changed his mode of death from suicide to homicide.
But the fact that his suicidal intent would not have been successful caused
the medical examiner to feel that he had a homicide on his hands. The room
on the ninth floor whence the shotgun blast emanated was occupied by an
elderly man and his wife. They were arguing and he was threatening her with
the shotgun. He was so upset that, when he pulled the trigger, he completely
missed his wife and the pellets went through the a window striking Opus.
When one intends to kill subject A but kills subject B in the attempt, one is
guilty of the murder of subject B.

When confronted with this charge, the old man and his wife were both adamant
that neither knew that the shotgun was loaded. The old man said it was his
long-standing habit to threaten his wife with the unloaded shotgun. He had
no intention to murder her - therefore, the killing of Opus appeared to be an
accident. That is, the gun had been accidentally loaded.

The continuing investigation turned up a witness who saw the old couple's
son loading the shotgun approximately six weeks prior to the fatal incident.


It transpired that the old lady had cut off her son's financial support and
the son, knowing the propensity of his father to use the shotgun
threateningly, loaded the gun with the expectation that his father would
shoot his mother. The case now becomes one of murder on the part of the son
for the death of Ronald Opus.

There was an exquisite twist. Further investigation revealed that the son
[Ronald Opus] had become increasingly despondent over the failure of his
attempt to engineer his mother's murder. This led him to jump off the
ten-story building on March 23, only to be killed by a shotgun blast through
a ninth story window.

Why must you confuse me!